How to Deal with A Miscarriage at Home
I was shocked when I finally got pregnant after a year of fertility treatments. As I started to plan and dream, I went to my second ultrasound at 7 weeks and found out that the baby’s heartbeat had stopped. The doctor told me I had two options: I could take a pill and miscarry at home or I could wait and have surgery.
I asked him if I could just wait and see if my body would take care of it.
It did, and it wasn’t so bad. It took me a lot of stress, asking friends, and searching on the internet, but I can give you a few tips.
Two Basic Options for Miscarriage During Your First Trimester
The gynecologist that helped give me referrals before I delivered my son (in Israel that don’t deliver the baby like in the US), along with another fertility doctor, strongly urged taking a pill called misoprostol. They both felt that it would be faster, most efficient, and enable me to more quickly get to a point that I could try again. I think the gynecologist gave me two options: surgery or the pill. He really pushed the pill because “you can do it at home.” He thought that a natural miscarriage would take a long time, not be complete, and take my time. I can’t actually remember what the two options were, but I do remember that waiting was NOT one of them.
My crunchy granola self who cancelled an epidural during labor with my son said: You can handle this. I also talked to my crunchy granola friends who also were able to pass their miscarriages at home, unless the pregnancy had reached the third trimester.
I also had been on the fertility wheel for quite some time and having a gradual miscarriage that lasted a few weeks, followed by another 6 weeks where I was waiting for my next period, after which I would wait another month to possibly try again, was something that I welcomed. Despite my old age of 43, I was honestly exhausted from it all.
It was also a bit hard for me to say goodbye to the pregnancy so soon and get on with things as well.
But in the unfortunate event that you are deciding what to do, here’s a bit of information about both options:
Misoprostal: Accelerating the Inevitable
The drug misoprostal is used to help accelerate a miscarriage. You should also note that it is used for abortions of unwanted pregnancy, which could explain why when I went to the pharmacy they didn’t have it in stock.
I don’t have first experience from this drug, but from my research it seems to intensify the cramps and is accompanied by diarrhea and vomiting. Fun!
I also found the people I asked to not have good experiences with this drug. A friend told me she took this pill, and she felt like she suffered for no real reason. She had wanted to speed things up, but I think in the end it wasn’t worth it and she needed to have a D&C. She claimed that when she went for the ultrasound to see if it had completely finished the technician said something to the effect of: “Yeah, the girls come in here and it never really works for them.”
A co-worker told me she had taken misopristol but it hadn’t worked for her.
As I mentioned, this is all anecdotal and I am biased towards natural remedies, so keep that in mind. Also both women had their miscarriages a few years ago, so there may have been some tweaks in the medicine since then.
The other thing that really sinched it for me was that my gynecologist made it seem as though I could take arrange for a babysitter or for my son to sleep somewhere, take misoprostol, have a bad time for 4-5 hours, and then carry on with things. When I did a bit of research I found that some women have miscarriages that take place within 4-5 hours of taking the pill, but others take a few days or even a few weeks. So I felt like I didn’t have as much control of timing as my gynecologist made it seem, and that was the prime reason to take misoprostal in the first place.
Expected Management: The Waiting Game
I asked the doctor if I could just wait for two weeks to see if things happened naturally on their own. I knew that at 8 weeks, it might not even be that painful.
About a week and a half after seeing the ultrasound that confirmed that the baby had no heartbeat – deemed a missed miscarriage – I started bleeding. It was actually my second miscarriage (I had one a few months before the birth of my son) and this one was far more gradual and gentle than the one before.
As a single mom, I wanted to have someone at my home in the small chance that there was a complication or I needed medical assistance. I am happy to report that this miscarriage was really like a bad period. I was able to control things with off-the-counter medication, and there wasn’t even a real moment when I could have called a friend to say “oh NOW come”.
Thanks goodness, because the internet is full of horror stories of women miscarrying. It’s really scary and misleading since the vast majority of women are able to pass miscarriages at home. I honestly didn’t even need to take a day off work, just rest a lot.
Miscarrying at Home as a Single Mom
I’ve always been cautious about my health, but ever since I had my son I’ve been more anxious about it. When I heard I would miscarriage, I worried about all the what-ifs. I had two wonderful friends who told me they would come and be with me if they needed, one also offered free child care (which I did take her up on).
I watched out for intense bleeding, a fever and intense pain after the miscarriage. I almost went to the emergency room for a “fever” of 98.6. Thankfully, I called the pregnancy hotline who told me not to come unless I had a fever of OVER 100. I didn’t, and after consulting with the nurse, I started to feel a lot less anxious.
From speaking to friends and some in-depth panicked nights of Googling, I would highly consider having a miscarriage at home if you are in your first trimester. Particularly if you are in too natural stuff and trust your body to do what it needs to do. Both options seem to carry the same (very) small risk of infection.
For single moms, I recommend building and having that village, and maintaining it. It’s times like these that you will be grateful that you did.